ISSF Shooting World C’ship: Saurabh Chaudhary bags 10m Air Pistol Junior gold with record scord

Asian Games gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary created a new junior world record to clinch the 10m Air Pistol Junior Men gold in the 52nd ISSF Shooting World Championship in Changwon on Thursday.

The 16-year-old, who had qualified for the finals in third position with a score of 581, went into the final series of shots to decide the gold medallist with an over 3 point lead against Korea’s Hojin Lim and though he couldn’t manage a 10 on his final shot he comfortably broke the junior world record with a total score of 245.5.

Arjun Singh Cheema gave India a reason for more celebration as he clinched the bronze medal with a score of 218 after qualifying for the final in sixth place with score of 577.

In the final, Chaudhary grabbed the lead after the second series of five shots and never conceded the advantage thereafter. It looked like India could win both the gold and silver when Cheema took the second spot after the second elimination round after the next two. But shots of 8.3 and 9.4 in the fifth elimination series saw him slip to third and though it assured him a medal, Lim responded with two 10.9s to shut out any hope of a fightback from the Indian.

The Indian team of Chaudhary, Cheema and Anmol Jain also clinched the silver with an aggregate score of 1730. Korea took the gold with a new Junior World Record score of 1732 while Russia clinched the bronze with a score of 1711.

In the 10m Air Pistol men’s event, India’s Abhishek Verma shot a quality qualification round of 583 but missed a medal or a Tokyo 2020 quota place on offer, finishing eighth in the final. He had qualified in third place for the eight-man individual final and shot 118 in the medal round eventually.

However, the Indian team of Abhishek Verma, Om Prakash Mitharval and Shahzar Rizvi won the team silver in the event with a combined score of 1738.

India also picked up a silver medal in the Junior Men’s Trap Team competition with Aman Ali Elahi, Vivaan Kapoor and Manavaditya Singh Rathore shooting a combined score of 348 to finish second behind Australia. Aman shot the best among the trio, his 118 in qualification taking him to the six-man final. He ended sixth. Aman had to also overcome a four-man shoot-off to get to the final.

India ended day five with 14 medals which includes four gold, six silver and four bronze medals. They lie in third position in the medals tally behind Korea and Russia.